Young QBs abound in NFL wild-card round

Pro football always has been a young man's game. It is becoming a young quarterback's.

Five of the eight quarterbacks starting in the NFL's wild-card round are first- or second-year players. Add San Francisco's Colin Kaepernick, whose team has a bye, and it's half the playoff field.

“What's happened this year is unprecedented,” said former NFL quarterback Steve Beuerlein, now an analyst for CBS. “To have three rookie quarterbacks lead their teams from the beginning of the year, play the full season, lead their teams to the playoffs, I don't think that's ever happened.”

It hasn't in the post-merger era. Indianapolis' Andrew Luck, Washington's Robert Griffin III and Seattle's Russell Wilson make up the largest group of rookie quarterbacks to start in the same postseason since 1966. Their accomplishments don't end there.

Luck is the only rookie to pass for 4,000 or more yards and win 10 or more games. Griffin and Wilson are the only qualifying rookies to post passer ratings of 100 or higher. Wilson tied Peyton Manning's rookie record with 26 touchdown passes. All three threw 20 or more.

Before the 2011 season, rookies had thrown 20 or more touchdown passes only three times in league history. Now that total is eight, with Cincinnati's Andy Dalton (playing today) and Carolina's Cam Newton having done it last season.

None of this is happenstance. Of course, all these young QBs are skilled, smart and mentally tough. They're also products of the evolution of their sport.

THINGS HAVE CHANGED

When he attended Servite High in the early 1980s, Beuerlein wasn't just a quarterback.

“I went straight from football season to basketball season,” he said, “and straight from basketball season to baseball season.”

Beuerlein lettered in four sports, including diving. Had he been born 30 years later, that probably wouldn't be the case.

Nowadays, when a young athlete shows promise as a quarterback, he plays quarterback year-round.

“Just look at the area where you live,” said ESPN analyst and former NFL quarterback Tim Hasselbeck. “When it's not high school football season, there's seven-on-seven leagues, different passing camps, guys who've become QB gurus.

“The position itself is being coached differently at an early age. You wouldn't have to go back that far to find entire high school games where teams didn't throw the ball. Now they're in the shotgun, throwing bubble screens.”

With training becoming more specialized and sophisticated, quarterbacks are more prepared entering high school. With high schools running more elaborate passing attacks, they're more prepared entering college. With colleges running pass-first spread offenses, they're more prepared entering the NFL.

“Now the concepts they're seeing in the NFL aren't 100 percent foreign to them like back when I was playing,” Beuerlein said. “They're not as much of a shock.

“When you're exposed to making those kinds of decisions on a regular basis, there's not as much indecision among quarterbacks coming out. The training definitely prepares these guys to be successful quicker.”

It's no coincidence that five of the eight QBs to throw 20 or more touchdown passes as rookies played in the past two seasons, or that Newton set the rookie-passing-yardage record that Luck broke. But there's another element in play, and that's the simple fact that it's easier to complete passes now than ever before.

“Think about the rules now,” Hasselbeck said. “It's no secret they're set up to favor the offense.”

Defenders aren't allowed to make contact with receivers more than 5 yards down the field, strike them when they're in “defenseless” positions or hit quarterbacks high (or low). As a result, passing numbers reached all-time highs this past season. New records were established in passer rating, touchdown-to-interception ratio, net passing yards and 300-yard games. All the previous records were set in 2011.

“There's a reason why it's not uncommon for a quarterback to throw for 5,000 yards and 40 touchdowns,” Beuerlein said.

But just because it's easier doesn't mean it's easy.

IT'S WHO THEY ARE

Luck, Griffin and Wilson don't seem similar on the surface. Luck has ideal quarterback size and stature. Griffin is wiry and runs like the track athlete he used to be. Wilson is less than 6 feet tall.

But anecdotes have poured in all season long about the traits they have in common: work ethic, maturity, the ability to lead. They all have the makeup to handle the rigors of the job.

“Over time, guys' true colors come out,” Hasselbeck said. “The season is long. It's easy to have excuses, problems, something to complain about. Having a good attitude about it all year long, it's hard — unless it's who you are. That's what comes across in all these guys.”

Tales of the hours Wilson spends watching film already are becoming the stuff of legend. Griffin is playing despite being less than 100 percent because of a knee injury (no matter what Mike Shanahan says). Luck never seemed like a rookie to Colts coach Chuck Pagano.

“He's playing right now like he's been in the league three or four years,” Pagano told reporters this week. “This (the playoffs) won't faze him one bit. He gets his blinders on, he gets locked in and he's as focused as anybody in preparation and at practice.”

Some guys have that “it” factor; others just don't. Two of Newton and Dalton's classmates, Jacksonville's Blaine Gabbert and Tennessee's Jake Locker, struggled their first two seasons and might not be long-term solutions for their franchises. The jury's still out on Minnesota's Christian Ponder, another second-year quarterback starting this weekend.

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